Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women (1934)
Always a bridesmaid and never a bride, Cornelia Meigs had been nominated for the Newbery Award three times before finally taking home the trophy in 1934. 1921’s The Windy Hill made the shortlist for the very first Newbery in 1922, and she received similar honors in 1928 and 1933. It’s an impressive run for any author to have so many books regarded as masterpieces across 13 years, but until Invincible Louisa, Meigs hadn’t broken through. A biography about Louisa May Alcott, perhaps the most beloved children’s author at the time, finally changed all that.
If she didn’t seem so madly in love with her subject, I’d have to assume that finally winning the Newbery for a book about a more acclaimed author would have been a crushing disappointment for Ms. Meigs. And yet…I get the distinct impression from reading Invincible Louisa that Meigs was madly in love with her subject. Humor me some conjecture here. Both Meigs and Alcott were female children’s writers at a time when women were just starting to gain some widespread acceptance as authors without needing to use male-sounding pseudonyms. Both women grew up in large families that esteemed education above all else. Neither ever married (always a bridesmaid, indeed).
Meigs’ treatment of Alcott’s life is complete hagiography, so over the top in its adulation for its subject that it reads as borderline parody. Reading the book, I got the feeling that if Meigs wan’t simply deifying or romanticizing her subject, Alcott at least represented some idealized version of Meigs to herself. Through Alcott, Meigs was able to manifest some of her own deepest wishes—financial security for her family, a successful writing career, a nationally-cherished work—right there on the page. That Meigs channeled her deep passion into a book that eventually made those wishes come true is an achievement worth celebrating, but it’s also a little heartbreaking. Nobody remembers Invincible Louisa because of Meigs; they remember it because of Louisa May Alcott.
Alcott published the first volume of Little Women in 1868, three years after the Civil War ended. It was an immediate national sensation upon its release, garnering so much attention (and money) that her publishers pushed her to write a quick follow-up, which was then published in 1869. That sequel was so beloved that it’s now just published along with the first part as a single volume. Alcott had other literary successes, including two more (!) sequels to Little Women, but her reputation rests almost entirely on those first two books. I haven’t read them since the third grade, but Invincible Louisa made me want to add them to my list.
Alas, Louisa didn’t make me want to add any more of Meigs’ books to my list. Invincible Louisa just doesn’t work as a book. For one, not even Jesus has a biography that makes him seem as saintly as Meigs makes Alcott out to be—when she’s not helping her family rescue slaves on the underground railroad, she’s nursing wounded soldiers back to health. And the hero worship doesn’t stop there, but extends to the entire Alcott clan. The family is painted as a collection of selfless, impoverished angels, and they seem like they were really boring people to hang out with.
Not only does it read as unbelievable, it also removes any emotional stakes from the story. People this perfect aren’t relatable, and so even when Meigs writes about Daddy Alcott’s total mental/emotional breakdown after his cultish utopia fails, we as readers don’t really care. That he comes out of the experience with a deeper love for his family and appreciation for the simple things in life (like the previously-forbidden heated bathwater, I shit you not) is enough to require an optometrist to surgically unroll your eyes. It doesn’t help that the prose is stuffy and stifling, each paragraph buttoned up so tightly I nearly choked.
Invincible Louisa strikes me as a book that homeschool moms love, but not the cool homeschool moms. Fundamentally, it’s a book about a much better book, and why anyone would choose to spend their time with this mawkish pabulum instead of reading Little Women is beyond me.
